Word.ws English Dictionary

literation

literation noun: the use of letters to represent sounds, words, etc., in a language.

Noun

literation (countable and uncountable, plural literations)

  1. The use of letters to represent sounds, words, etc., in a language.
    • Another point which is of much importance, but upon which there is not at present any agreement among librarians, is the system of literation to be adopted where it becomes necessary to represent in English characters, names or words from languages having special characters of their own.1878, Transactions and Proceedings of the Conference of Librarians, Charles Whittingham, page 14
    • He supported the assumption of administrative and management functions by Africans, the literation of African languages; as well as agriculture, mining and banking by African enterprises; public health services staffed by African doctors etc.1988, Liberia-forum, Issues 6-9, Liberia Working Group, page 53

Forms of literation

pluralliterations

Origin of literation

From Latin littera, litera (“letter”).

Questions about literation

What does literation mean?
Literation means the use of letters to represent sounds, words, etc., in a language.
What part of speech is literation?
Literation is a noun.
What is the plural of literation?
The plural of literation is literations.

Words near literation in the dictionary

  1. literateurs
  2. literateuse
  3. literateuses
  4. literati
  5. literatim
  6. literation
  7. literations
  8. literatisation
  9. literatise
  10. literatised
  11. literatises

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: literation (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “literation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/literation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.